


Hauntings

by okapi



Series: Spooky & Kooky (the Halloween fics) [17]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: holmes_minor, Community: watsons_woes, Ficlet Collection, Halloween, M/M, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-21 03:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21068003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) ficlet collection for Hallowe'en. All chapters stand alone. Check chapter summaries for warnings.7.Harvest Fest. Holmes & Watson go to a rural harvest festival with sinister results. Poetry.





	1. Smiling (Holmes/Watson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Smiling  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 500  
**Based on:** Smee by A. M. Burrage  
**Summary:** Watson decides to play a hide-and-seek game at an English country house weekend party.  
**For:** the October DW Holmes Minor prompt: smiling.

“I don’t suppose Mister Holmes will play?”  
  
“No, not his thing at all, I am afraid,” I said apologetically.  
  
The whole business wasn’t Holmes’s ‘thing’: being a guest at a weekend party at a stately home in the country. But for once, we hadn’t been called from London to investigate a strange happening or to provide Holmes with a much-needed rest.  
  
It was a church that had piqued Holmes’s interest, a church in a very remote corner of the British Isles. Holmes had wanted to take a room at an inn, but, as they say, there wasn’t one to be had, room or inn, that is. But an old army friend of mine, a Colonel Jackson, had an estate nearby.  
  
And so we found ourselves in Strigine Manor. For one night only, Holmes swore. He would visit the church early in the morning, and we’d be on our way back to civilization before luncheon.  
  
So, no, Holmes wasn’t going to play parlour games, in particular, a kind of hide-and-seek called ‘Smee’ with the eleven other guests, most of them young people.  
  
But I am always a good sport.  
  
We were given our scraps of paper. Mine did not say ‘Smee.’ The lights were turned out, and I waited with the others. Then there was a bell, which indicated the hunt for Smee could begin.  
  
I crept along.  
  
“Smee?”  
  
“Smee.”  
  
“Smee?”  
  
“Smee.”  
  
I decided to break away from the pack of hunters, thinking, in fact, that I might make my way back to the adjoining rooms that Holmes and I shared on the east wing of the first floor, but in the spirit of the game, I changed my mind and made for the west wing of the same floor.  
  
There were tall, deep windows at the end of a very dark passage, and I brushed past a pair of bony knees I thought I knew.  
  
Had Holmes decided to play after all?  
  
“Smee?”  
  
No answer.  
  
Well, if Holmes had decided to play, he would have certainly taken the central part on himself.  
  
I slipped behind the curtain and joined the figure on the window seat. Two fingers stole into my palm, and I instinctively closed a warming grip ‘round them.  
  
“My dear!” I ejaculated. Really, how long had he been sitting here waiting for my arrival? “Your hands are like ice!”  
  
No answer.  
  
Well, I supposed it was part of the rules that once you found Smee, you were supposed to wait in silence until, one by one, the rest of the party found you.  
  
So I waited.  
  
Until finger brushed my free hand. They were also cold, but not as cold as the ones still in my grasp.  
  
“Watson?” said a whispered voice from beyond the curtain.  
  
Fear closed like a glove ‘round my throat.  
  
If Holmes was out there, whose hand was I holding in here?  
  
I turned my head slowly to the right, and saw, floating in the darkness, a crooked row of ghastly glowing teeth, smiling.


	2. Must be the Seasoning of the Witch (Mrs. Hudson & Bessie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Must be the Seasoning of the Witch  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 500  
**Characters:** Mrs. Hudson (witch), Bessie the housemaid (apprentice witch)  
**For:** the DW Holmes Minor prompt: smiling, my GYWO prompt: bones and jars, and the DW Spooktober prompt (Table 2/Day 8): practicing witchcraft.  
**Summary:** Mrs. Hudson gives Bessie a very important lesson about their craft.

“Now, pay attention, Bessie,” said Mrs. Hudson with a smile, “a witch’s role is not just to further her own work, but she must also be ready to lend a hand in assisting other supernatural agents in theirs.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bessie. She gave an obedient nod, but her eyes wandered nervously to the stairs and the bells on the wall.   
  
“Mister Holmes’s train has been delayed, and Doctor Watson is enjoying a good book. They shan’t disturb us.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“I know we usually have our training sessions in the lumber room, and I confess I am much more comfortable sharing the wisdom of the ancients amongst our jars and bones. But, if you think about it, we have jars and bones here, too.”  
  
Bessie considered the point thoughtfully, then nodded again.   
  
“And this is one lesson that must be taught here,” continued Mrs. Hudson as she raised both hands, “in the kitchen. Now, let’s begin. Everything’s ready. First toast the bread on both sides.” She demonstrated. “Then toast the cheese on one side. Put it on the bread and brown the other side. Now, apply the mustard in an even fashion…”  
  
“But Mrs. Hudson?”  
  
“Yes, my dear, am I going too fast for you?”  
  
“No, ma’am, but isn’t that Welsh rarebit?”  
  
“What an apt thing you are! You’re going to go far in the coven, my dear Bessie, mark my words.”  
  
“Thank you very much, ma’am, but forgive me for asking a stupid question…?”  
  
“There are no stupid questions, my girl, except ‘What’s that burning?’ The answer is always ‘curtains.’”  
  
“Yes, ma’am, but I was wondering what Welsh rarebit had to do with witchcraft?”  
  
“On the surface, very little, but, curiously, human beings are extremely willing to blame any phenomena outside the norm on having eaten this dish prior to retiring for the night. It’s quite remarkable. They will happily blame any maneuvers by ghouls, ghosts, possessed furnishings, oh, the list is endless, on the consumption on a Welsh rarebit. You can invade their dreams, their homes, their gardens, their ancestors’ graves, even their very persons and terrorise them to no end, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, it was all that Welsh rarebit I had for supper.’ And so, in behooves you, my dear, to learn how to prepare this dish well and propagate its popularity among your employers. It will a great boon to you in the future and should you need to work with another agent, well, you can provide a very useful service.”  
  
“Oh, I see!” said Bessie with a smile. “M’ gran used to make it with beer.”  
  
“Now, that’s a very good point, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We will cover all the variations. Now, many prefer to add a bit of spice such as pepper to the final dish, and that is a perfect opportunity for you to add a pinch of whatever herb or preparation with further your own needs. So, let’s say, you want to silence a noisy violinist…”


	3. House of Wax. (Holmes/Watson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** House of Wax  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 500  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**For:** DW Holmes Minor monthly prompt: smiling & DW Spooktober prompt (table 2/day 16): haunted house  
**Summary:** Watson has a bad dream.

I was bathed in darkness.  
  
Why ‘bathed’? Why not ‘swimming’? I pondered absent-mindedly.   
  
Regardless, I felt myself drifting, moving without conscious thought or action, as if carried by a heavy, unstoppable current, toward the light.  
  
A long hall with figures standing on either side of a corridor.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw their faces.   
  
The faces of kings and queen and emperors. The faces of poets and artists and composers.  
  
Faces that were minted on coins and sculpted into monuments.  
  
Still faces, resolute expressions, no softness save for the medium in which they were carved.  
  
Once soft, now hard.  
  
Wax.   
  
Cold, hard wax.  
  
Footfall on a hard floor, mine, I realised, passing from one room into another.   
  
Shadow washing over me.  
  
Bathing, swimming, washing in darkness.  
  
More figures, more faces.  
  
Two rows, standing at attention.  
  
But the faces!  
  
Horrid, grotesque masks.   
  
Murderers. Violators.   
  
Torturers. Tormentors.   
  
Peddlers in pain and misery on either side of me.  
  
My soul recoiled even as my corporeal form advanced.   
  
The room grew warmer, warmer, and I realised, suddenly, but by no overt cognition of my own, that it was an infernal, diabolical, punishing heat.   
  
And the faces, those cold, hard, wax faces, were melting.  
  
Dripping.  
  
All but one.  
  
I turned my head sharply and forced myself to look it full in the face.   
  
Full.  
  
In the face.  
  
I focused my eyes. My heart leapt.  
  
Holmes!  
  
His eyes were keen, his stare impassive.   
  
My soul recoiled once more. What was he doing here among the infamous and the black-hearted?   
  
But then.  
  
He smiled, the warm smile he reserved for quiet moments and genuine mirth.  
  
Holmes!  
  
That warm smile grew warmer and warmer until…  
  
…drip, drip, drip.  
  
Holmes’s features lost their angularity as drops formed rivulets and streams form rivers.  
  
And his nose, his cheekbones, his chin, those grey eyes beneath arched brows, those lips still holding that smile…  
  
…melted.  
  
Drip by drip, then all at once, sliding down in a torrent of sludge.   
  
And then hell erupted!  
  
\---  
  
“Watson!”  
  
I yelped. Holmes was beating my arm and the arm of the chair.   
  
“Very careless of you, old man, to nod off so close to an open flame, you could have done yourself no end of mischief.”   
  
I grunted, ignoring the curls of smoke.  
  
“Holmes…”  
  
“One needn’t be especially observant to see yours was a troubled kip. What were you dreaming of?”  
  
“Remember our conversation of earlier?”  
  
“We had many. Which one?”  
  
“The one about Madame Tussaud’s considering opening a wing for well-known crime-fighters as well as notorious criminals?”  
  
“You were all for it. I wasn’t convinced.”  
  
“I’ve come ‘round to your way of thinking. I don’t think you should agree to it.”  
  
“Don’t fancy a still life Holmes living directly across the street from the real life one?”   
  
“I can’t bear to think of you melting.”   
  
Holmes squeezed my shoulder. “That _is_ the stuff of nightmares. Well, then my answer’s a definite no.”   
  
I sighed and scraped the candle drippings off my sleeve.


	4. Haunted Thoughts. (Holmes/Watson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Haunted Thought  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 800  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**DW Watson's Woes Prompt:** A Haunting Thought: Whether it's a memory, an idea, or just something that won't get out of a character's head, have something mental  
haunt a character.  
**Summary:** The name that haunted Holmes well into his later career wasn’t Norbury or even Reichenbach. It was Openshaw.

The name that haunted Holmes well into his later career wasn’t Norbury or even Reichenbach.  
  
It was Openshaw.  
  
_That he should have come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death—!_  
  
His words to Watson rang like the tolling of funeral bells long after the case was closed, long after the _Lone Star_ had sunk, presumably with those directly responsible for Openshaw’s death.  
  
Holmes understood intellectually that his was only an indirect role, an accidental one borne of ignorance or arrogance or simple lack of precognition.  
Nevertheless, he carried the burden like a heavy weight on his chest, like a chronic cough that would not let him slumber or rest, like a ghost just over his shoulder, out of sight, but not out of mind. Or heart.  
  
Holmes saw the lad in his dreams, his face a fresh two-and-twenty and his air of refinement and delicacy which he carried about him like a well-tailored cloak.  
  
_That he should have come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death—!_  
  
He should have seen, he should have known, he should have warned the lad at very, very least.  
  
No.  
  
He should’ve been with him.  
  
With his singlestick and his pugilist fists, he should have fought alongside Openshaw. And saved the lad from his fate.  
  
The weeks and months passed, and outwardly, Holmes put on a show for Watson’s sake as much as the rest of the world.  
  
But Openshaw was there, in his dreams. He was reaching out, trying to grasp Holmes's hand, trying to reach him, but he always failed. And Holmes often woke in a cold, clammy sweat with his heart pounding and his stomach twisted in guilty knots.  
  
Then there was Reichenbach. And his return. And he thought he’d put Openshaw behind him, consigned that error in judgment to an index of many in a career that showed every sign of being a lengthy one.  
  
And then, of all things, his eye happened to catch a woman cutting an orange in half in the market.  
  
Pips.  
  
Five pips.  
  
Holmes had to stop and catch his breath. Watson put a hand on his shoulder and spoke his name with utmost concern.  
  
Holmes waved him off and soldiered on.  
  
But that night, the nightmare returned, leaving him a withered husk of a human in the morning.  
  
Watson’s concern boiled to alarm.  
  
Holmes said nothing. He thought of cocaine. He thought of opium. But he suspected, or rather he feared, that those substances would only amplify and make more grotesque his monster.  
  
That was when he began to make his pilgrimages.  
  
Careful to avoid Watson’s observation, he went to Waterloo Bridge, to the very landing-place where Openshaw must’ve tipped into the river. In the beginning, he went during the day, but there came a night in September, a dark, stormy night that so echoed the night that Openshaw had, unknowingly, abandoned the warm haven of 221B Baker Street for his watery grave that Holmes could not resist the call of his ghostly burden. Watson was, fortunately, paying home visits.  
  
Openshaw.  
  
Holmes cared not a whit for the elements of wind and rain that whipped his body. His thoughts were one word and that word was Openshaw.  
  
But then, as he slipped carefully down the Embankment, he heard footsteps.  
  
And more than one set.  
  
The hairs stood erect on the back of his neck when a guttural voice confirmed his own danger.  
  
Holmes tightened the grip on his singlestick. Then he turned and fought.  
  
And won.  
  
Much later, as Holmes sat as still as could be managed when being bandaged and poultice and stitched back together, his eyes, without any movement of his head, met Watson’s.  
  
“How much did you pay those blackguards to assault me tonight?”  
  
Watson smiled and paused his ministrations.  
  
“You’ve been hurting for a long time, Holmes. I wanted to help you lay the pain of Openshaw to rest once and for all. And conventional measures or advice seem utterly ridiculous. But if it changes anything, I did not pay them to lose. I merely paid them not to kill you. Please,” he said, tenderly brushing Holmes's hair from his face, “you were human. It was a tragedy. And so it goes.”  
  
“And so it goes.”  
  
And so it went, too.  
  
The haunting, that is.  
  
Holmes slept peacefully and woke in much lighter spirits despite the bruised ribs and contusions. And whenever the memory of Openshaw surfaced, as it did, on occasion, he would think of his battle with the ruffians near Waterloo Bridge and imagine he was defending that fresh-faced lad of two-and-twenty. And, no longer plagued by the memory of the client he had lost, he threw myself into life without reservation, or ghostly burden.


	5. thine own heart dry of blood (Holmes/Watson. Rating: Mature. Warning: necrophilia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** thine own heart dry of blood  
**Length:** 2700  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Warning:** Necrophilia  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**DW Watson's Woes Prompt:** cadaver  
**Other tags:** a skeleton (heh) of a casefic (no flesh at all!); villain lifted from Dorothy L. Sayers' _Whose Body?_; use of The Language of Flowers; angst, h/c, exorcising figurative, post-Reichenbach demons, shifting POV, inspired by Keats.  
**Summary:** Holmes and Watson investigate a case of grave-robbing.

It was a ghastly night to be in a graveyard, but Holmes, naturally, would settle for nothing but examining the scene with his own eyes and without delay, and I felt obliged to accompany him despite the unsavoury elements.  
  
The storm was raging. The lanterns had been relit twice. Nevertheless, Holmes, gave every sign of being oblivious to the cold, rain, and wind. He was studying the perimetre of the hole in the earth with all the enthusiasm of a sleuthhound seeking a scent.  
  
I was, literally, his fixed point in the darkness, holding the umbrella that guarded the brightest of the torches.  
  
Lestrade looked like a drowned rat hoping to be put out of its misery.  
  
“Her name was Mrs. Dittany Brown,” he said, “wife of Harold Brown, a shopkeeper. One young child. She died of a sudden, acute bout of septicemia four days ago and was buried yesterday.”  
  
“And stolen tonight,” said Holmes. “And the keeper?”  
  
“Best information I have is that a gentleman visited a grave earlier tonight. He gave the groundskeeper a few coins and told him to go buy himself something to warm himself. On a night like tonight the poor thing needed no further urging.”  
  
“And he’s still in his cups?” I suggested.  
  
“Right you are,” said Lestrade. “We’ll know more when he’s sobered up. Nobody saw anything. No one about, truth told.”  
  
“Hard work digging up a body,” observed Holmes. “But he must’ve had a barrow and then a carriage to take her away.” He headed off, following tracks that only he could see.  
  
I remained, inching closer and closer to the mouth of the gaping hole.  
  
The image imprinted in my mind, prying open a trove of dark thoughts I considered safely interred.  
  
A grave.  
  
Reichenbach.  
  
Mary’s death had proved the final impediment to fantastic notions overrunning common sense and decency and taking residence in my brain, and the most macabre of the collection was my obsession with recovering Holmes’s corpse. I spent days, and nights, planning a return journey to the dreaded cataract that had taken Holmes’s life. I’d decided that I would devote the rest of my days to single-handedly dredging every mile of tributary to recover his body. Then, or so was my scheme, I would bury him, digging the grave myself and laying him in his final resting place with a proper marker.  
  
I had envisioned the whole scenario. I would place Holmes in the earth as one might tuck a sleepy child into bed. And then? And then I would join him. I would lie curled beside him, pull the dirt atop us like bedclothes, and rest.  
  
These thoughts were still with me when Holmes and I returned to Baker Street, he having finally declared the clue-finding possibilities exhausted for the night.  
  
“Do you think the culprit is the same person or persons who disturbed Lady Lilac Merridew’s grave two weeks ago?” I asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.  
  
“Yes. Lestrade thinks so, too, or he wouldn’t have contacted me.”  
  
“A shopkeeeper’s wife is a step down from an earl’s daughter as corpses go.”  
  
“And, thus, much easier to steal. The other theft was quite bold.”  
  
“Resurrection men?”  
  
“Very particular ones if so. Nevertheless, it’s an avenue that must be investigated. Tomorrow. We’re soaked to the bone and near frozen tonight. I don’t suppose we can resurrect our sleeping landlady for a cup of tea, do you? No, I didn’t think so.”  
  
I was tucked in my own bed when the image of the open grave resurfaced. The fantasy came flooding back as ripe and raw as it had been during those desolate days, months, and years before Holmes’s return.  
  
As I’d dwelled on it, the plot twisted and grew more depraved.  
  
As before, I imagined that I wouldn’t just lie with Holmes as the dearest of friends and companions. I would have loved him according to all the definitions of the word, that is, taken him into my body and put my still-living body into his lifeless one. That was where my grief had led me in those dark days: to reclaim my loss in the most tangible means imaginable. What cared I for taboos? My wife was dead. My friend was dead. I took my solace where I could find it.  
  
In my warm Baker Street bed, I grew hard at the memory of the fantasy. I took myself in hand and relieved the ache, thinking of the dead Sherlock Holmes and the grave I never excavated.

* * *

“Corpses are not cadavers, Mister Holmes,” said Sir Adrian Freke. “I’m certain you, and Doctor Watson, understand the distinction. The police have already questioned me about the disturbance of Lady Lilac Merridew’s grave. I swore to them that neither my students nor my colleagues were paying thieves, directly or indirectly, to provide them with dissecting specimens. Burke and Hare will haunt the study of medicine in England forever, it seems, but resurrection men are very much a thing of the past, for the simple fact that we’ve no need of them.”  
  
My eyes went a small framed painting on the wall behind the distinguished physician’s head.  
  
Sir Adrian noticed my stare and turned his head.  
  
“I know that river,” I said. “I remember it from when I was a child, staying with my aunt.”  
  
“Oh, yes? My home is there. When my dear Rose was living, I spent every free moment there.”  
  
“You are also a widower,” I said somberly. “You have my condolences.”  
  
“And you have mine. It is a sad state, isn’t it? But back to the matter that brought you here, I am as keen as anyone to have this grave-robbing mystery cleared up if for nothing else than to clear my profession of the horrible rumours that are beginning to circulate.”  
  
“Did you know Lady Lilac personally, Sir Adrian?” asked Holmes.  
  
“As a child, yes, our families were close friends, but I haven’t had any contact with her since my youth. Different circles, you know. I was not her attending physician, and I am as horrified as the next person at the violation. Scandalous!”  
  
“And Mrs. Dittany Brown, last night’s victim?”  
  
“She’s completely unknown to me. I read in the papers this morning she was a shopkeeper’s wife.”  
  
“And you have no notion of who might be responsible for this?”  
  
“None at all. It must be a madman. I dearly hope you or the police find him and bring him to justice.”

* * *

I steepled my fingers at my lips and closed my eyes. It was my signal to Watson and anyone who bothered to call that I did not wish to be disturbed.  
  
I was thinking about the case.  
  
I was!  
  
But I was also thinking about the grave that Watson and I visited the previous night.  
  
I should’ve been in a grave like that.  
  
I’d been dead, hadn’t I?  
  
Being only human, I’d often speculated in the three years I’d been away what might’ve happened if Moriarty had been the victor, if I hadn’t chosen the path I’d chosen, if, if, if…  
  
I’d lived as the ghost of Sherlock Holmes for three long years, and in those three years, I’d not been able to push Watson from my thoughts. How I longed during that time to take my ephemeral form in earnest and return to London. Surely, ghost must be able to fly. Or project themselves through the ether.  
  
Just to see him. Just to be near him.  
  
I’d dreamed of haunting Watson.  
  
And, if I were brutally honest, in my more desperate moments, I dreamed of possessing him, corporally. I knew to indulge in such thoughts was the way of madness, so I distracted myself with restless travel, continually pushing forward while looking over my shoulder for Moran and any more of Moriarty’s remaining supporters.  
  
But I had to sleep sometime. And just before sleep came, my traitorous mind always scampered off into patches of thorny brambles. Slipping into Watson’s mind like a nightmare. Or, perhaps, dare I think it, a welcome dream?  
  
Daft. The case!  
  
And the traces of familiar-looking mud in Sir Adrian’s study that he’d taken great lengths to unsuccessfully hide.

* * *

“Really, Holmes?”  
  
“Watson, what did I tell you about a doctor going bad? The story that the young doctor tells was edifying, wasn’t it? He and the young lady were betrothed when he was a poor, struggling medical student and a pet pupil of Sir Adrian Freke. She broke it off and married Brown, but not before the rumours circulated of a certain warm regard that the mentor had shown her.”  
  
“There may have been nothing on her part, Holmes.”  
  
“Her part doesn’t concern me. She is the victim in all this, as well as a very comely woman if the photograph doesn’t flatter.”  
  
“But that was years ago. She married another fellow. The jilted one graduated and became a doctor. Sir Adrian went on to get his eyeful somewhere else. Water under the bridge.”  
  
“Perhaps. Let’s ask him.”

* * *

“Sir Adrian’s not here, sir. He left yesterday for his house in the country.”  
  
“But we had an appointment,” Holmes lied.  
  
“It was a family emergency, sir. The daughter of his cousin has taken grievously ill. She’s always been a weak thing, poor Daisy, has, and her mother sent word for Sir Adrian to come and see if there’s anything he could do.”  
  
“That’s very troubling, indeed,” said Holmes. “So sorry to have trespassed on your time.”  
  
\---  
  
“Are you certain, Holmes?” I asked as we settled into the train.  
  
“Not entirely. But I think it highly probable.”  
  
“But why, Holmes? Not for medical purposes. He’s got plenty of corpses at his disposal without having to dig up freshly-interred ones.”  
  
“Cadavers, not corpses. He himself told us that.”  
  
“But why?”  
  
“There are more things in heaven and earth, my dear Watson, than are dreamt of…”  
  
“Oh, you greatly underestimate my capacity to dream or philosophise, my dear man,” I said sharply.  
  
Our eyes met.  
  
It was but a single moment, but I felt seen, and seeing, at once.  
  
I did not want to know what Holmes would say next, so I said,  
  
“You know, it’s kind of like that song.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Oh, I think it was popular when I was young. My aunt used to sing it. I forget how it starts but ‘…a lilac for the kiss of first blush true, a dittany for the one who made you blue, a daisy for the innocent untouched, a bouquet made of blooms you love so much.’”  
  
Holmes’ stared. Then he asked sharply, “Which aunt?”

“The one I lived with when..."

* * *

  
  
“Oh, Christ, Holmes!”  
  
“Not now, Watson, and you may want to have your handkerchief at the ready as well as your revolver. The aroma will be strong.”  
  
“But Holmes I remember how the song began. ‘A rose for joy in rain and dew…”  
  
“Yes, I feared it was something like that. Silence! We may yet catch him unawares.”

* * *

We did, in fact, catch him unawares, but he did away with himself before the constabulary could arrive.

* * *

The following night, Holmes and I were back in Baker Street, watching the fire, drinking whiskey-and-sodas, each seemingly lost in his own thoughts.  
  
“How does love become so warped?” I asked the flames. “Like most things, I suppose. Slowly, then all at once.”  
  
“That wasn’t love. That was madness. Obsession. Hubris.”  
  
“Do you think he was telling the truth, that he didn’t kill them, he just ‘picked them from the garden’ after they’d died?”  
  
“I don’t know. If I were investigating, I’d start with Lady Lilac. He’d obviously grown tired of his late wife after some years. Perhaps after that murder, he got a taste for killing as well as less decomposed companionship, and so killed Mrs. Brown. He certainly had the medical knowledge to do infect someone with septicemia. But I suspect the cousin’s death was natural. At least, if he didn’t tamper with the treatments and tonics that he prescribed…” Holmes shrugged.  
  
I shivered, then nodded. “If he did kill them, that’s one thing. If he didn’t, well…”  
  
“Watson!”  
  
“Wrong. Very wrong,” I finished. “A violation of the worst degree.” I took a long swig of my drink. “But the sentiment, Holmes…”  
  
It was then that I poured out my fantasy.  
  
Holmes listened, and I was surprised to note that his expression didn’t change. Then he opened his mouth and, to my further surprise, poured out his fantasy.  
  
When he’d finished, we stared at each other in silence, the exchange temporarily driving out all thoughts, at least in my mind, of the horror we’d witnessed some hours before.  
  
“What happens now?” I asked.  
  
Holmes shrugged. “Nothing. Or…”  
  
\---  
  
Three days later, I returned to Baker Street in the evening to find Mrs. Hudson on the way to stay with her sister and Holmes painted in pale theatrical makeup and lying very still on the bearskin hearth rug with his hands folded over his chest holding a sprig of cypress.  
  
This was my corpse.  
  
I locked the door and drew the curtains.  
  
“Oh, Holmes.”  
  
I laid beside him and wept.  
  
I wept three years’ worth of pain, and when I was done, I opened my trousers, freed my erection, and rut between his thighs. I licked his neck and whispered into his ear all that I had never had the courage to say before. Holmes’s breathing remained almost Imperceptible; the flickering of pulse at his throat was the only indication he was listening.  
  
In the end, I cried out, his name on my lips, and, after catching my breath, got to my feet, leaving a wet patch on his trousers.  
  
I went to bed.  
  
I woke to a figure hovering over me.  
  
I had to remind myself I wasn’t Dickens’ Scrooge, and that this wasn’t the Ghost of Christmas Future.  
  
More like the ghost of Christmas Holmes!  
  
He glowed, wan and emaciated, with powder-white hair which hung longer than I’d ever seen on him. He wore a kind of long, billowy nightshirt. He might have been the spectral remains of a Romantic poet who died of consumption.  
  
I rolled onto my side, away from him, and he slipped beneath the bedclothes and pressed the length of his body to mine.  
  
For a ghost, he was very warm and solid.  
  
And hard.  
  
He kissed my neck and whispered in my ear. He declared, in minute and passionate detail, his love and his lust and his esteem for me. He spoke of the moments he missed me most when he was away and the moments he cherished since he’d returned.  
  
And all the while, he was opening me, then mounting me, covering me with his body and burying himself deep inside me.  
  
It had been quite a while since I’d performed the act, but I’d prepared myself, physically and mentally, for it.  
  
“Inside you, inside you, haunting you,” he whispered, “just as you haunt me.”  
  
I breathed in the fragrance of greasepaint and powder.  
  
Holmes found his release and nuzzled the side of my neck.  
  
“Well?” he asked.  
  
I turned and looked at him.  
  
And laughed.  
  
He smiled. “I confess I feel not a little ridiculous, Watson.”  
  
“So do I! Hand me a flannel, Holmes. Then wash your face and your hair and put on a decent nightdress and come here,” I ordered, like a querulous nanny.  
  
He laughed. “I think my demon, at least this one, is exorcised.”  
  
“I feel the same. It was a ghastly case, Holmes, one I dare not write up for the public.”  
  
“No, no,” he agreed.  
  
“Let’s put it, and Reichenbach, behind us and just live on.”  
  
“Capital suggestion.”  
  
When Holmes returned, he recited,  
  
_This living hand, now warm and capable  
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold  
And in the icy silence of the tomb,  
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights  
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood  
So in my veins red life might stream again,  
And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–  
I hold it towards you._  
  
“Keats,” he said.  
  
I hummed and took that living hand, so warm and capable, in mine and fell asleep. 


	6. Rustling in the Leaves. (Sussex 'verse. Fluff.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Rustling in the Leaves  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 600  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**For:** DW Watson's Woes Spooktacular prompt #5 [Unsettling Vocabulary: Use some of your favorite spooky, haunting, or otherwise scary words!] and DW Spooktober [Table 2/Day 27] Raking Leaves.  
**Notes:** Retirement!lock, Sussex verse.  
**Summary:** Something's rustling in the leaves.

The autumn of the year. The autumn of my years.

I have reached the point in life where I perform tasks for the sheer joy of being able to perform them and perform them unaided. And so at crack of dawn I wrap myself up, each morning requiring a layer more than the previous, and go out and rake the leaves from the stone walk which extends from the back door of the cottage to the bench where Holmes and I are wont to share a cup of tea and greet the day together.

One strong gust and my work will be undone. I know this, but I still do it.

I step out and greet the day as the air is shedding its night dampness, taking on a delicious dry crispness.

I tromp to the shed for the rake, savouring the crunch of leaves underfoot.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

The rhythmic scratching of metal upon stone adds to the birdsong and the rustling of the wind.

The stiffness of my shoulder joints and back ebb, muscles warming as I move.

My thoughts drift.

Harvest time.

My rake is like a swinging scythe.

Grim reaper.

Bringing in the sheaves.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

I pause and spare a glance for the cottage behind me.

Holmes is still asleep. He’s had a good night, and I left the bed with the prayer of anyone who’s cared for an ill loved one: that his body allow nature’s great restorer to have her way with him for as long as she pleased.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

I reach the bench but do not indulge in a sit. I’ve learned the hard way that I must keeping moving to keep moving.

I turn back and watch the leaves raining down in soft cascade. A squirrel dives in the wake of my efforts, making the leaves startle and shake.

Now what is that, I ask myself as I stand with my hand on the rake, surveying my realm.

Far too many leaves on the rose bed.

I frown.

How in heavens did they all fall right there?

Mysterious ways, indeed, but they must be tackled. A thin blanket is all well and good, but the fastidious gardener won’t stand for a long snake-like heap of those proportions.

I stomp to the shed and exchange the rake for a smaller, more delicate version. Then I approach the bed, humming.

The leaves rustle.

Squirrel?

“Shoo!” I say. Poking the pike with the rake.

My implement touches something rather hard that doesn’t move.

I move slowly, afraid of scaring whatever it is. I poke it again, and when it doesn’t move, I lean in, studying the shape.

Then I begin to carefully scrape away the leaves.

“Oh, dear God!” I mutter.

It’s a bone, a leg bone, a human leg bone.

I scrape some more, my grip on the wood handle becoming tight and damp.

The leaves rustle.

And rustle.

And then, of its own accord, rising from the desiccated foliage, is a skeleton!

“ARRGH!” I cry and drop the rake as the bony creature sits up and turns the cavernous sockets of its skull toward me.

And then I hear it.

Giggling.

I turn abruptly. “Holmes!”

He appears from behind a hedge, grinning, his eyes aflame with mischief. The hem of his nightdress is peeking from beneath a great overcoat. His hands are curled as if holding invisible reins.

“All Hallows’ Eve is right around the corner, my dear man. I couldn’t resist. Just a bit of wire and our old friend Skelly.”

I smile. He’s on the mend, indeed.


	7. Harvest Fest (Holmes/Watson. Poetry.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Harvest Fest  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Poetic form:** ballad  
**Length:** 328  
**Warnings:** Ambiguous ending, dialogue only  
**Summary:** Holmes & Watson go to a rural harvest festival with sinister results.

“How crisp the autumn eventide!  
How bright the bonfires glow!  
What bliss the English countryside  
when autumn breezes blow!  
  
Your invitation did surprise.  
This didn’t seem your place,  
but my dear Holmes, look at your eyes,  
your bright, expectant face!  
  
Here’s apple cider freshly pressed.  
There, pumpkins on the vine.  
And roasted chestnuts, I confess,  
a favourite of mine.”  
  
“Do eat and drink your fill, my friend.  
Indeed, it all disarms.  
I find my city blood does bend   
to these bucolic charms.  
  
Let’s play a game of chance (or skill)  
And win a corn husk doll.  
Enjoy and sample every thrill  
belying autumn’s pall.”  
  
“But what’s that tent, Holmes, over there  
that’s drawing all the guests?  
Oh, pumpkin carving! Staple fare  
of rural harvests fests.”  
  
“This village’s known both far and wide  
for carving expertise  
in gourd. Dear Watson, watch it glide!  
The sharp edge curls with ease.”  
  
“The faces and the figures, Holmes!   
Whittled luminaries!  
They’ve monsters, horrors, giants, gnomes,  
wolves and bats and fairies.”  
  
“They seem to be quite apt in blade,  
the whorl and arabesque,  
preferring, based on what’s displayed,  
depicting scenes grotesque.”  
  
“Oh, let’s move on. A raffle, there!  
A ticket for us each.   
And there’s a maze of maize, do we dare?  
Yes, Holmes, into the breech!  
  
How quick the dark is settling ‘round!  
Should we turn left or right?  
These pumpkin lanterns on the ground,  
don’t seem to throw much light.”  
  
“Indeed, the stalks are thick as thieves.  
It seems that we’re alone  
among the corn, the forks and cleaves,  
but those sounds aren’t our own.  
  
And what are those things before us?  
Four pumpkins pared so strange.  
Like the canisters of Horus,  
where mummies kept their change.”  
  
“Oh, God, Holmes! The raffle tickets  
declaring that we’ve won!  
And hark! What’s that in the thicket!  
And me without my gun!”  
  
“The flash of steel, the eldritch snap,  
I can’t conclude but thus:  
this labyrinth is but a trap,  
Watson, the harvest’s _us_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Hallowe'en!


End file.
